synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

airplanes. Both General Estienne and Lieutenant Colonel de Gaulle were
judged incompetent fools by the High Command. Marshal Foch deliberately
excluded the issue of an {Independent Tank Corps}, and kept repeating that
since the horse cavalry won in the First World War, "We must always do the
same." This was the mindset of the {Continuous Front} strategy of the
French High Command, which was based on the 1930 Maginot Line
defense. (This defensive project was named after its author, Andre
Maginot, a war veteran who served as Minister of War, until 1932. The
problem with this line of defense was not only that it was out of date, but it
was built in the wrong place, facing Germany in the East, while leaving the
flat Belgium land in the north, undefended. Belgium had been the German
invasion root going back a thousand years. It was the fastest, the easiest and
the most obvious route to take with Panzer divisions.)
This romantic chivalry attitude of maintaining the traditional Cavalry
instead of the {assault artillery} was merely a cover that would assure the
destruction of the French Army, during the very first encounter with the
German Panzer Divisions, a deliberate omission which was tantamount to
high treason. In fact, none of the Military Commanders had the intellectual
and moral courage to break with the old axioms militarily, politically and
strategically, which was necessary to do in order to respond to the new
situation in the world. What was required was a new way of thinking and
acting, which only de Gaulle showed the courage to act in that fashion.
Up to the very last minute, de Gaulle would offer his services to the
sitting President Paul Reynaud. On June 3 rd , 1940, de Gaulle wrote an
extraordinary letter to Reynaud. It is an amazing document which is worth
citing in its entirety:
"Mister President,
We are on the edge of the abyss and you are carrying France on your
back. I ask you to consider this:
1. Our first defeat comes from the fact that the enemy has applied my
conception, as well as from the fact that our own command has refused to
apply the same conceptions.
2. After this terrible lesson, you, who were the only one to follow me, had
found yourself to be the master, in part because you had followed me
and that this was known.
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